


like a song

by nullray



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/F, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 11:48:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30038244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nullray/pseuds/nullray
Summary: Billie is wholly unlike humanity, unreal and so far beyond anything Rowena has ever known in power, but she, Rowena realizes, also loves humanity and life. Deeply, and achingly, with the force of someone who has seen it at its worst and best and not judged it, but accepted what she’d seen.Rowena realizes Billie has likely never known fear.
Relationships: Billie (Supernatural: Form and Void)/Rowena MacLeod
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	like a song

**Author's Note:**

> i was thinking about this ship and then wrote a whole thing in one go, so! here you go. there's mentions of dean/cas and sam/eileen and sam/eileen/rowena but i left them untagged because they're far from being the focus.

Rowena cannot remember a time before she learned to fear death. Even as a young girl, small and frail and always too bony, she knew of the dangers of death. It was everywhere, then, carried invisibly from person to person, sweeping entire villages off the map, or at the edge of a blade, in the sound of a voice and the gleam of metal.

Rowena had quickly learned how to avoid death, how to recognize the signs of its approach and the best way to run when she had to. How to swallow her pride, or what little of it she still carried with her, to survive. 

Now she is dead, but she knows she can die again, and Death sits in front of her, sprawled comfortably on Rowena’s leather couch, in her hand a cup of tea. 

Sam texts her, sometimes, more often than Rowena would admit if anyone asked, not enough than she’d like, sometimes. Mostly to talk about things he’s read or heard. A lot of things about mindfulness and trauma and Rowena is far from stupid, she knows he’s doing it for her benefit, because he knows the Queen of Hell wouldn’t ask for help, can’t ask for help. So he tells her unbidden instead, like they’re funny stories he heard at work rather than ways to calm your breathing, ways to ground yourself when it feels like your soul is slipping out of your body. 

She remembers those methods now, unbidden, looking into Death’s eyes. Since she has died, theoretically, Rowena no longer needs to breath. She still does, because several hundred years of living as a human do teach one that no longer breathing is a very bad thing, but she doesn’t miss oxygen when it leaves the room. 

In moments like this, she thinks she might.

“More tea?”, she asks Death, because she may be terrified, but she’s still a good hostess and an even better actress. 

Death, Billie, shakes her head, slowly. There’s a smile on her face, one Rowena might recognize as kindness, if kindness made sense in a moment like this. “I am not here for you,” Billie says, calmly, and crosses her legs. “I’m here to discuss business.”

“Oh!” Rowena smiles, pleasantly. “On to business then, if you insist.”

Billie nods, looking serious, and Rowena feels like there is a little more air in the room, even if there is little reason to feel like there is. “The Winchesters came to me, with a plan.” 

Rowena remembers the plan, yet another topic Sam had first broached via text, then discussed at length over a phone call and then yet again in the spacious apartment they are in now, Rowena’s compromise for visitors who’d rather not enter Hell. She understands the impulse, but she knows it’s where her own power rests. 

“Closing the doors of Heaven and Hell, wasn’t it?”, she asks, feigning ignorance on the details. “Yes, I think I remember.” 

She remembers the discussion she had had with Sam about it, the way he’d explained it to her. Violent people get sent to Hell, to suffer until they become demons, demons who come to Earth to corrupt more souls to bring to Hell. He’d said something about cycles of violence and abuse and trauma. It had made Rowena recall being small and frail and weak, running from Death until she could learn to fight against it, to laugh in its face. She knows the feeling of wanting power so you don’t feel weak. 

Billie nods. “It would mean sending all souls to the Empty instead. Past and Future.”

It would mean a complete loss of power for both Heaven and Hell. Or at least an almost complete one-- Rowena still had her demons, Heaven still had angels remaining. But the brunt of their power, the souls powering both of them, they would be gone. 

“Yes I’m aware,” she counters, challenging Billie with a look, uncertain what Death is asking of her. 

There is something different, again, in Billie’s gaze. This time, Rowena has no idea how to read the emotion she can see. “I was wondering if you were,” Death tells her, eventually. “They came to me to negotiate their plan. I said I would do it, if they had Heaven and Hell backing them.” She says it like she’d expected that to be an impossibility. 

Rowena smiles, because now she recognizes Billie’s expression as surprise. “What can I say,” she purrs, sweetly, over her own cup of tea. “Can’t say no to those boys.” 

What she doesn’t say is that these days, she looks at the Winchesters and sees the frightened little boys they used to be, the ones they still are. The way Sam Winchester thinks of cycles of violence and sees himself and yet chooses to be gentle, even to people like her, who have done worse things than he’s ever experienced at the hands of his own father. 

Jack, the boy, had told her about the world he’s dreamed off as a child, one without fighting. He’d looked her into the eyes with his own, golden amber, both four years old and ancient at once, innocence and wisdom and childlike naivete. He’d told her that maybe without Heaven and Hell, there wouldn’t have to be any more fighting. 

Rowena had thought of men and their cruelty. She’d thought of cycles of violence and trauma and abuse and seen herself and Fergus and Oskar. She’d thought of the Grand Coven.

She’d told the boys that she would play along with their little plan if it meant no Heaven on her tails. And Jack, again, the boy, the son of Lucifer, had promised her that he would keep her safe. “Because you’re family!”

Really, how could she have said no?

Billie, Death, looks at her and nods. “You are a remarkable woman, Rowena MacLeod.” It doesn’t sound quite right, coming out of her mouth, but Rowena still preens under the praise. Like she didn’t just agree to giving up almost all of her power. 

“That’s why I’m the Queen,” she tells Billie, and rises to her feet. She faces Death and doesn’t laugh in her face, or run from her. Instead, she smiles, wide, “If you would like to discuss the terms further, we should meet for tea again.”

* * *

They meet for coffee in Paris, because Rowena is nothing if not classy. She knows there’s a demon sitting at another table of the cafe, just as she knows that a Reaper is lurking not far from them, keeping an eye on the situation. 

But they just drink coffee, and they don’t discuss any matters of Heaven and Hell, as much as is possible for Death and the Queen of Hell to avoid those topics. Rowena tells Billie about the joys of Paris, how the city has grown and developed and how they’re both lucky it no longer smells of manure, fish, and decay.

She figures out how to make Death smile, and then how to make Death laugh at one of her jokes. She learns that the deep and earthy chuckle that Billie lets out when she’s actually laughing is so much better than being the one laughing in the face of Death. 

She wonders if it’s possible to become friends with the one she’d feared most her life while Billie tells her about music and songs and stories. “Everything is a story,” she says, because she’s the keeper of the largest library in the universe. “And in songs, and in music, people tell the oldest stories they can remember. They don’t even know it, sometimes.”

Billie hums a melody for Rowena, one almost as ancient as humanity itself, she tells her. “Music is made of patterns, patterns we discover over and over again. Humanity is similar, sometimes. Patterns repeat, but sometimes you discover something new.”

Billie is wholly unlike humanity, unreal and so far beyond anything Rowena has ever known in power, but she, Rowena realizes, also loves humanity and life. Deeply, and achingly, with the force of someone who has seen it at its worst and best and not judged it, but accepted what she’d seen.

Rowena realizes Billie has likely never known fear. 

They separate, but it’s with a promise to talk again, with Billie telling Rowena that she will show her what she’d meant when she’d talked about music. 

* * *

They meet in a small bar, classy and smoky, and, Rowena suspects, trying to capture the spirit of a time that has passed. There is a woman on a small stage, singing with a deep voice that reminds her of the melody Billie had hummed to her the time before. 

They drink, Rowena ordering something powerful with a pretentious name, Billie ordering a local special. 

“Local specials aren’t as unique as these places make them sound,” Rowena points out, because she’s a few hundred years old too, and she’s had quite a few drinks in that time.

Billie smiles. “Not everything that is tied is tied through magic,” she says like those words make any sense whatsoever. 

Before Rowena can counter anything, she’s shushed by Death putting a finger to her lips. Uncertain of what she’d expected, Rowena is surprised by the warmth it radiates. Death, to her, had always been cold and distant. Billie, she realizes, is anything but. 

Then, belatedly, she realizes why Billie had shushed her. One of the musicians on the stage begins a small solo. Billie, she realizes, suddenly, seems entranced by it, like she’s drinking up the music rather than the drink in her glass. Maybe she is. Rowena remembers something the Winchesters had told her once, about how the old Death had loved awful fast food, the kind of stuff that gives you a heart attack. 

Perhaps, for Billie, music is much the same. Rowena contemplates that as she contemplates the way Billie closes her eyes, the smile dancing around her lips, painted with deep red lipstick, darker than her usual shade. Golden light dances over cheeks, reflected in her warm, dark skin.

Rowena, who has known death as ugly and cruel and cold, who has seen death in sickness and blades and doled it out by her own hands, realizes that Death is in front of her, that Death loves music almost as much as she loves humanity. She looks at Death and thinks that Billie is beautiful and wonders if every part of her is as warm as the brief touch of her finger had been. She wonders what it’s like to touch Death and to be touched by her with kindness.

She shudders when the music pauses and when Billie turns her gaze back to her, but it has nothing to do with the music and everything with the warmth in her eyes. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Billie asks her, and Rowena nods before she realizes she must have meant the music. 

She thinks about kissing Death when they separate, and wonders if doing so would kill her, like she’s seen in so much art and heard in so many songs. But the touch of Billie’s hand had been warm, and death is meant to be cold. 

* * *

The next time they meet is on the porch of the Winchester House. One of the Winchester’s houses, at least. It’s a wedding and Rowena had a dress made for it, made to look like she’s wreathed in flames at all times. Hellfire. 

She hadn’t expected Death to also show up, but neither had the grooms, Dean almost choking on whatever snack he’d been eating when she showed up in a bright red suit.

They don’t talk much during the wedding, Rowena’s time mostly split between watching Jack (when she turned into the babysitting aunt, she doesn’t know, but it’s impossible to hate the nephil with his bright smile and innocent eyes) and meeting Sam’s girlfriend. Eileen is a spitfire, a bright but steady soul, and Rowena doesn’t believe in things like romance or soulmates, but she does believe in the joy of meddling and, maybe , in she believes in the happiness she sees in Sam’s eyes and Eileen’s promise to call if they ever want to have some fun. 

She doesn’t talk to Billie until the party has wound down, the newlyweds off, likely to consummate their marriage, most of the other guests drunk on happiness or company (there hadn’t been alcohol, a change Rowena had noted but not commented on, because no matter what some might think she does know when to keep something to herself). Rowena finds her, sitting on a bench at the edge of the sprawling collection of weeds and wildflowers the boys call a garden. 

Billie’s suit is open, now, showing more of the blouse she’d been wearing underneath. It’s lacy, Rowena notes, now that she’s close enough to notice those details. The buttons of the suit gleam amber in the light of an endless number of magically lit candles. 

“Strange to wish them the best after I wanted them to remain dead for so long,” Billie says, eventually, into the silence between the two of them. 

Rowena smiles. “I used to try to kill them. People change.” An understatement, perhaps. 

Billie nods. “They explained it to me. The way God has been writing them like a story. We’ve all been tools in His hands, really.” 

“Not anymore.” Rowena states the obvious, looking into the light of the candles. She wonders who lit them, but only because she doesn’t want to wonder about the proximity between her and Billie, next to each other on their bench. 

“Not anymore,” Billie agrees, in the tone of grim satisfaction belonging to someone who has reaped God. She doesn’t sound like she wants to talk about it, so Rowena doesn’t ask. 

“What comes now?”, she asks instead. 

Billie remains silent, for a long time. “Death will always exist, so I will always be working and watching them. Maybe there will be more peace, more time for life.” 

“More time for music?”

“More time for living.” Billie says it like it’s the same. 

“Must be awfully lonely,” Rowena shoots her shot while gazing at the remaining festivities. “Hell needs less of my attention now, if you’re ever looking for company.”

Billie looks at her, once again inscrutable. Maybe there is a smile in her eyes. “I am.”

* * *

Kissing Death doesn’t feel like dying, it’s not cold like ice, it doesn’t hurt. Death, Billie, kisses warmly and gently, tastes more like life than any of them men Rowena has touched in life. She sighs into the touch of Rowena’s hands, smiles when their hands entwine. 

She looks gorgeous on Rowena’s burgundy sheets, their shade matching the lipstick that has become smeared around her mouth at some point. There’s heat in her eyes, but it’s tempered, like it needs more than human desires to take over Billie, like she’s allowing the passion to exist. 

Rowena teases the heat in Billie’s eyes with her hands and mouth. Hundreds of years of experience have left her with enough knowledge to feel confident that she can manage to drive death wild if she so desires. 

She doesn’t quite manage before collapsing into the sheets, both of them sweat-soaked and grinning. 

Unthinking, Rowena lets Billie, lets Death, wrap her arms around her, gentle, looks into her eyes. There is a thought on her mind, about music and art and how neither of them can be killed, not by conventional means.

She doesn’t know yet, if she wants to spend eternity like this. But she does know that Death is gorgeous and warm, and nothing she has to fear. Not right now. Maybe not ever, not anymore. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading, i hope you enjoyed it, because that's all i can ask for. 
> 
> have a good day <3


End file.
